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Monday, 4 January 2016

Galaxy S7, S7 edge to be waterproof and have microSD, bigger batteries

As we get closer to the reported February 21 unveiling date, more and more details about Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge are beginning to leak.
Today some new information has come to light courtesy of Evan Blass (also known as@evleaks). He says the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge will be waterproof, thus adding a much-requested feature that used to be present in the S5 from 2014. Not only that, but they will adhere to the IP67 standard, which means they will also be dustproof.

Furthermore, they will both have larger batteries than their predecessors, which will hopefully improve their running time on one charge. The S7 is said to sport a 3,000 mAh cell, while the S7 edge will apparently get a 3,600 mAh battery (that's up from 2,550 mAh and 2,600 mAh, respectively, in the S6 and S6 edge). Unfortunately, the new batteries will not be user-replaceable. On the other hand, the S7 will fully recharge wirelessly in just 2 hours, and the S7 edge in 2.2 hours.

The S7 will allegedly have a 5.1-inch QHD touchscreen, while the edge version will keep the resolution but sport a 5.5-inch display. Both models will get something called "Always On Display" functionality, with glanceable information on the screen at all times (something that's been done by Nokia with its Windows Phones ages ago). This is made possible by the fact that AMOLED displays don't consume any energy for showing black pixels - thus, if the screen is mostly black, then the power impact of such a feature is negligible.

The S7 and S7 edge will have microSD card slots, once again getting back a feature that disappeared in the S6 even if it was present in the S5.

As previously rumored, at least one version of each S7 device will employ Samsung's own Exynos 8890 SoC, which will reportedly come with an LTE Cat.9 modem built-in. 4GB of RAM will be in both phones, along with 32 or 64GB of storage.

The selfie camera will be 5MP as in the S6, but the main cameras in the S7 duo will have 12MP resolution, down from 16MP in their predecessors. However, this will be a new Samsung Britecell sensor, which will be 1/2" in size, and pairing that with the rumored f/1.7 lens aperture should result in very good low-light shots. The rear camera's lens will probably be flush with the device (for both S7s).